PHOENIX (AP) - A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling requiring Arizona’s Medicaid program to provide broader coverage for incontinence briefs for disabled people.
The ruling issued Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stems from a lawsuit filed by the Arizona Center for Disability Law. The suit challenged the state’s policy of providing incontinence briefs only to treat skin problems and infections and not to prevent those problems.
A federal judge ruled in 2012 that the state’s Medicaid plan had to provide the briefs.
The appeals court upheld that ruling but struck down a requirement that Arizona retroactively pay for the briefs.
Attorney Sarah Kader of the disability law center says the policy denied people medical supplies their physicians thought were medically necessary.
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